The Involvement of Unfree Labor in the Coffee Trade

In the 18th century, Europe's coffee demands were met by plantations in the Caribbean. Plantations were large farms run usually by one rich family on which worked many slaves that cultivated the land and provided all of the labor. As the native population of the Americas were greatly reduced by disease, Europeans imported slaves from Africa to work on the plantations. Taken against their will by slave ships across the Atlantic, they were bought and sold throughout the New World. To make a profit on cash crops such as coffee, landowners needed to expand their fields as much as possible.…